To be booked solid requires that you have a solid foundation. As part of a solid foundation you need the following:
Know who are your ideal clients
Understand why people buy what you are selling
Develop a personal an unique brand
Communicate what you do in a concise and clear manner
A solid foundation will support all of your business development and marketing.
The first step in building your foundation is to choose your clients.
In order to figure out who your ideal clients are, choose your clients as carefully as you choose your friends – the type of individuals or businesses with whom you do your best work.
The purpose is to identify the specific characteristics of the individuals or organizations that would make them ideal to work with. By doing so, it will allow us to develop a rigorous screening process.
Most businesses work with anybody that has a checkbook and as much as it Might seem to be the right approach on the long run the benefits of this strategy are very limited. Instead, choosing your ideal clients will empower your business and yourself – it will allow you to increase productivity, do your best work and have more clients and more referrals. Joy, prosperity and abundance happens when you perform optimally, when you are with people who inspire you and energize you.
In order to start the process, you have to begin to identify the types of clients you have. Ask yourself which are the current clients which give you strength, energize you, empower you, make you creative, provide you with confidence and which ones are the ones who drain you, turn you off or shut your down. Ask yourself, would you rather spend your days working with incredibly amazing, exciting, cool, awesome people or spend your time with barely tolerable people who suck the life out of you?
Be honest with yourself, identify your ideal clients and the ones who are not and take action. Taking a Booked Solid Action Step is a bold action which requires courage – start by removing the type of clients that zap your time and energy - even if you take one step at a time by replacing them with your ideal clients. This process will not only benefit you but also benefit those same clients you will not work with anymore - since, if you are working with people with whom you do not do your best work, you are out of integrity – refer them to someone who can.
There is nothing wrong with the no-ideal clients. They are just not right for you as you are not right for them. Whenever you take the step, be tactful, diplomatic, loving and keep it simple: “ I’m not the best person to serve you”. Remember, in life you cannot please everyone, to even try is futile.
Choose the best balance and strategy for you, your business and your clients. You can choose to loosen or tighten at will the type of clients you consider ideal. If you are new in the business you will not want to turn away you first clients even if they are not ideal but as your business permits you should be focusing only on working with and looking for clients which are the ideal clients.
Define and list clearly which benefits ideal clients will provide you with such as energy, strength, confidence, successful, alive, etc. Which qualities do they have such as positive attitude, collaborative, resilient, value-oriented, outgoing, creative, etc. Which clients do you look forward to seeing ? Whom do you love to be around ? With which clients do you work the best ?
Create a list of filters which will help you to define them clearly. What filters do you want to run your perfect clients through?
Once you attract more and more ideal clients you will discover that you are happier, more vibrant, more energetic, more productive and you will give your clients the best of yourself and your services and it turn you will gain even more additional business referrals.
For more information on our consulting services, please visit www.isucorp.ca
Written by John Krumbach,
VP of Finances